You can pre-order the new album, "Tempest" here. The song at the link, which you can play in full, is "Duquesne Whistle."

ADDED: While over at Amazon, I happened to click on another link and see this new Art Garfunkel 2 CD set, "The Singer," which becomes available tomorrow. Funny, seeing "Duquensne" in the Dylan song got me thinking about a conversation Meade and I were having earlier this morning about the Simon and Garfunkel song "America." That came up in the context of the post from last night about the WaPo writer "searching for the 'authentic America'" in Madison, Wisconsin (of all places). In the comments, Pogo did a parody of the old S&G song:

Emily said as we boarded a Greyhound in DC
"Madison seems like a dream to me now"
It took her four days to hitchhike from Washington
She's gone to look for America

"Emily, I'm lost," I said, though I knew she was drinking
I'm empty and aching and I don't know why
Could be those cheese curds from authentic supper clubs
WaPo's gone to look for America
All gone to look for America
All gone to look for America

Meade had been singing that and, referring back to the old Paul Simon lyrics, began musing about why it took "four days to hitchhike from Saginaw" (to, apparently, Pittsburgh), and we were talking about songs that named a lot of places. I seemed to know that Simon used "Saginaw" because he liked the sound of the word. Yes, I vaguely remember blogging about that. Ah. Here. Now, I see it's that he declined to cancel a concert in Saginaw because "he said he had to see what a city named Saginaw looked like." Hey, that's a crazy old post from last month, tripping from topic to topic. That's the kind of post that this blog is really about. Did you know that?

Anyway. Back to today's conversation. Songs that contain the names of places. I was saying "Saginaw" is a cool name. What are the other songs where the writer liked the sound of a place name? Maybe "Duquesne Whistle" is one.

Meade brought up that song "I've Been Everywhere," and I dismissed it on the ground that it just named a lot of songs, but looking at the list of place names, I can see they're pretty amusing names. Muckadilla, and so forth. Wait. That's the Australian version. Australia has some funny sounding place names. The American version is more just a lot of names, thought I like Baraboo and Kalamazoo (and Baraboo is in Wisconsin). But if you're going to have Baraboo, Kalamazoo, why not Waunakee, Kankakee?

There are lots of songs with place names. Don't be naming all of them. I want songs with place names where you genuinely believe the place was named because the songwriter loved the sound of the word.

50 comments:

Naomi Wolfe's orgasms and Dylan's guitar chords. Can anything in life be more sublime? It's not so much that I have never experienced anything that sublime as it's that I don't believe anything that sublime truly exists. I'm an intruder in the dust choking on my own banal existence, but it's good to watch the eagles fly by.

Just finished working out all the guitar and vocal parts to "If Not for You" with the girlfriend. "Duquesne Whistle" will have to be further down the list of songs to work on. Going on 50 years now of delving into Bob's playbook.

When I was up in Wisconsin this summer from Florida we would have sing arounds in the old way. passing a bottle of wine with the guitar and picking/singing from a great selection of tunes - Tambourine Man, Last Train to Clarkesville, Trailer for Sale or Rent, Jackson, Can't Find My way Home, etc. Do people still do that anymore or is it just old folks like me?

I was totin' my pack along the dusty Winnemucca road,When along came a semi with a high an' canvas-covered load."If you're goin' to Winnemucca, Mack, with me you can ride."And so I climbed into the cab and then I settled down inside.He asked me if I'd seen a road with so much dust and sand.And I said, "Listen, I've traveled every road in this here land!"

This, of course, is nothing new for Dylan. He's been a great impersonator all his life. The thing about him though, is that unlike other impersonators, he usually takes the vocal, musical, and lyrical styles and turns them into something else.

But it does seem to me that the older he gets, the more derivative Dylan becomes.

By the way, I enjoyed 'Together Forever.' 'Duquesne Whistle' doesn't make me want to get 'Tempest.' Dylan seems to be plowing some of the old ground. That's his prerogative, of course. But I don't need to shell out any of my cash to hear him do a collection of reprises.

Resonates with me because, well, I got stuck in Lodi once, but fortunately not for very long.

While traveling from LA to Eureka, we coasted into Lodi with a with a sheared off bolt on our alternator. I watched in amazement as a Hispanic mechanic used a punch to back out the broken off bolt to replace it. The first quarter of a turn was agonizing.

I couldn't finish it. Not adventurous enough, though the guitar line and his croaky vocals are charming. Everything's mixed too loud, once the drums kick in, and no, it doesn't swing, which is kinda weird.

Oh well, it beats that garbage by Cat Power they're also promoting,...

When Ruthie says come see herIn her honky-tonk lagoonWhere I can watch her waltz for free'Neath her Panamanian moonAnd I say, "Aw come on nowYou know you know about my debutante"And she says, "Your debutante just knows what you needBut I know what you want"

"Panamanian moon" is good. Dylan is great for using place names as condiments in his lyrics.

I've always felt that American (that includes Canadian) songwriters had an unfair advantage over their British counterparts because of the euphonic American place names. British names like Durham, Scarborough, Birmingham et al are simply not as evocative as Wicsonsin, Saginaw, Alberqueque.

The song that I always remember when I think about this is Bobbie Gentry's "Greyhound Going Somewhere" where the coda at the end of the song is simply a recital of American placenames